


Till Lethe quench life's burning stream

by chaletian



Category: Arcadia - Stoppard
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-21
Updated: 2010-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 02:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Time is all around / except inside my clock / everybody's waiting for their lover to unlock.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Lethe quench life's burning stream

It’s late and it’s dark and the only sign of life at Croom Hall is the gentle creak of the worn oak stairs and and the tremulous light of Thomasina’s candle. There’s a painting on the wall, of Cassiopeia being sacrificed to the Kraken, and Thomasina’s determined that she’s not going to be sacrificed to anyone or anything; she will determine her own path (and she giggles, of course, because determinism is her and Septimus’ private joke, then presses her hand over her lips because the last thing she wants is for Augustus to hear her).

He’ll come, of course, Septimus. As she enters her chamber and leaves the door ajar, rests her candle on her writing table, Thomasina knows that he’ll come, because he’s Septimus and she’s Thomasina and they – are – so – determined. She glances in the mirror, and wonders how she will feel in the morning: seventeen and a woman.

It’s still pretty early in the morning as Bernard bounds up the narrow stairs of Croom Hall, calling Hannah’s name. She appears in a doorway, his fucking dahlia expert.

“What are you back here for?” she demands.

“Forgot some stuff. Hermione said you were up here. What on earth for?”

Hannah shrugs, and hands him a sheet of thick, yellowed paper. “I’ve never been. This was Thomasina’s room. Or it used to be; they had to rebuild part of it after the fire.”

Bernard’s not listening. “ _Septimus with Plautus_. I said the tortoises were a feature.”

“She drew it – Thomasina.”

”Probably fancied him.”

“Bernard!”

“What? You wrote a book about Caroline Lamb, you can’t still believe English ladies were all prim and proper with zero sexual desires.”

“Oh, I’ve been upgraded from “novelette” now, have I? Should I thank you? And she was seventeen.”

”Not quite seventeen,” Bernard points out. “Anyway, I remember being a teenager, don’t you?” He glances again at the picture, shrugs, and hands it back. “Definitely wanted to shag him.”

” _Bernard!_ ”

“I knew you’d come.”

“I should not have.”

Septimus looks bigger in her chamber than he ever did in the schoolroom, and Thomasina feels something that might be nervousness. He says, “This cannot end well,” and she smiles.

“We cannot know how it will end, Septimus. That is the point.”

He smiles too. “But if we had your equation…”

“Oh, phooey to algebra and geometry and equations! Did you speak of such things to the Chater in the gazebo?”

“I did not speak of anything. Ours was not a meeting of minds, but loins, and you are too young to know of that.”

“Too young? When I have had Septimus Hodge to teach me of carnal embrace?” She stands up, and catches his hand as he had hers when they danced. “You have taught me the principles, Septimus, but principles are worthless without practical applications.”

She’s still smiling up at him, her face glowing in the candlelight. She is his student. She is a child. She smiles still, but differently, and she is not a child.

He kisses her.

“I bet they did it.”

” _Did it_? Bernard, this isn’t some tawdry English professor getting his rocks off with a student!”

”You shock me, Hannah!”

“Nothing shocks you, Bernard.”

”Anyway, I bet they did.”

“You can’t possibly – ”

“I know.”

“I’m going to send a gift for you to Sussex,” she says, brimming with impatience at his folly. “Do you know what it’s going to be?”

“I’m not sure I want to hazard a guess.”

”A dahlia.” He groans. “Yes, Bernard, a dahlia, to teach you to remember that we. Don’t. Know. We weren’t there, we _didn’t_ see it, and we cannot possibly know.”

“Tock tick, Hannah,” he says, and disappears down the stairs before she can actually give in to a week’s building fury and hit him.

It’s not quite what Thomasina expected, but then she had known that her research was limited to the contents of the library (uninspiring; better in French than English, and best of all in Greek) and the insights of Maria, her maid, who grew up on the home farm. She lies on linen sheets and marvels at the feel of another body, naked and next to hers, so close that she can feel Septimus’ leg against hers.

He brushes back the hair from her face and says, “I hope you don’t regret this.”

Thomasina sits up, leans over, and mimics his gesture. She smiles anew. “I never will,” she says.

Hannah stands in the middle of the room, and imagines it as it must have been in Thomasina’s time: simple and elegant; befitting a young lady.

“I love you, you know.”

Tock tick, and she thinks ( _knows_ ) that Bernard was right.

“Mind your candle.”

 

END  



End file.
